Travelling Around Britain and the World

Wednesday, 27 February 2019

Ahmedabad (1) Liquor Licences, Mosques and Tombs: Gujarat Part 1

Gujarat: The What, Where, When and Who

India
Gujarat

This post covers day 1 of a 14-day journey around Gujarat, following our circuit of Rajasthan last year. Smaller than Rajasthan, Gujarat is about the size of the Island of Great Britain and has much the same population.

5,000 years ago, Gujarat was a centre of the Indus Valley civilization and subsequently played its part in most of the major north Indian empires. When Islamic invaders reached northern India in the 9th century Gujarat held out until 1300 when it became part of the Delhi Sultanate.

Our trip round Gujarat was hardly the neat circuit of the Rajasthan tour, and we did make variations to the plan mapped out here, but if we did not see everything the state has to offer, we saw as much as anyone could in the time available.

An independent Muslim sultan seized power in 1391 and Gujarat maintained its independence until becoming part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century and later the British Empire, though local rulers of a patchwork of Princely States retained considerable autonomy. At independence in 1947 Gujarat was part of the State of Bombay, becoming a state in its own right in 1960.

With a long coast line facing the Arabian sea, Gujaratis have been seafarers and international traders for millennia.

Gujarat is the home state of both Mahatma Gandhi and the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

-o0o0o-

Ahmedabad: The Former Capital of Gujarat and a Huge but Little Known City

We touched down in Ahmedabad at 3 am. That is 9.30 pm GMT, a time we might normally expect to be reasonably alert but after 17 hours on the road we were anything but. Ahmedabad has 5.6m citizens making it Gujarat’s largest city and India’s 5th largest, ahead of Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras)*. Unfortunately, I was too tired to gain any meaningful first impression of this little-known metropolis as we drove through the dark, but not exactly quiet streets to the House of MG where we checked in and went to bed.

The House of MG, Ahmedabad

The huge and handsome House of MG sits on a T-junction of busy roads in Ahmedabad’s Old City, on the north bank of the Subramati River. Built in the first decade of the 20th century as a home for businessman and philanthropist Mangaldas Girdhardas, the house was restored in the 1990s and converted into an 18-room heritage hotel.

The House of MG hides behind peaceful gardens at a busy intersection, Ahmedabad

Our room, lined with Girdhardas family photographs, was large, comfortable and (wi-fi, flat screen television, and air-con apart) in keeping with the period of the House.

Our room at the House of MG, Ahmedabad

The door was locked by an electronic gizmo which noiselessly clenched it tight the instant it closed and was released by a button inside or by waving a card at the key pad outside. This is hardly ground-breaking in the 21st century (we live in the future!) but I mention it because i) it was entirely at odds with the rest of the room's electrics and  ii) our boarding at Dubai had been delayed 20mins as the electronic door between gate and plane had resolutely refused to recognise anyone’s card.

The switch panel in our room, House of MG, Ahmedabad

Awake and refreshed, we lunched in the hotel’s Green House Restaurant (so much cooler than the Greenhouse Restaurant) on fried bhajis, fried gram flour balls and, because I insisted on something that had not been fried, steamed cubes of fermented rice with mustard seeds and sesame – they were an error.

The Green House Restaurant, House of MG, Ahmedabad

How to Get a Drink in Dry Gujarat

After lunch we met Digvijaysinh (Vijay), who along with driver L, would accompany us for the next fortnight. But before we set off to explore Ahmedabad, we had a job to do. Gujarat was the home state of Mahatma Gandhi who was born in the port city of Porbandar in 1869. As well as campaigning for Indian Home rule, he was a champion of temperance, and out of respect for his wishes his home state has enforced prohibition since 1961. Fortunately there is a loop-hole for visitors.

Armed with passports, a letter from the House of MG stating we were temporary residents, used boarding passes to prove we had just arrived, driving licences to show we had a permanent address outside Gujarat and a phone so they could email us a password, we presented ourselves at a small office with blacked-out windows beneath the Comfort Hotel just south of the river. We had hoped to acquire a liquor permit each, but discovered our hotel, with effortless and unconscious sexism, only mentioned me in their letter. After 30 minutes wrestling with the intricacies of Indian bureaucracy I signed the big green ‘Naughty Boys Book’ and was handed my permit.

My Gujarat Liquor Permit (with a ouple of redactions for the sake of my privacy)

This allowed me to buy two ‘units’ of alcohol immediately and two more in ten days’ time - a ‘unit’ being 1 bottle of spirits, 3 bottles of wine or 12 litres of beer. We would have liked a beer with our dinner, but drinking in Gujarat must be done in private not at a restaurant table, so we settled for a daily nightcap.

The Liquor Store, its windows forbiddingly blacked out, was next door. My permit was examined, I signed another big green book and was permitted to enter, but only alone. Inside was a well-stocked drinks shop; for a price they had major brands of most drinks, even a selection of single malts. Local spirits were cheaper (£10-£12) and I chose a bottle of Old Monk rum, distilled in Chennai, and a whisky. Like most south Asian whiskies it was a locally distilled grain spirit blended with a dollop of Scottish malt and equipped with a fancy Scottish name. There are several variations of the name Macintosh (McIntosh, MacKintosh etc) but this was the first time I had seen it spelt with a Q!

MaQintosh Premium Whisky and Old Monk Rum

Drinks safely acquired we set off for Sarkhej Rosa.

Sarkhej Roza

A roza is a mosque and tomb complex, and Sarkhej, a village of weavers and indigo-dyers before the urban sprawl consumed it, is home to Gujarat’s most revered roza.

Sarkhej Roza, Ahmedabad

Gujarat was absorbed into the Delhi Sultanate around 1300. A century later, when Delhi fell to Timur (Tamerlane) the local governor took the opportunity to declare himself the first Sultan of Gujarat. His son Sultan Ahmed Shah (ruled 1411 to 1442) was influenced by the Sufi saint Shaikh Ahmed Ganj Baksh who lived at Sarkhej. The saint suggested Ahmed Shah build his capital nearby on the banks of the Subramati, which he did, modestly naming it after himself (though Vijay pronounced it Arm-uh-bad).

Ganj Baksh died in 1445, aged 111 (allegedly), and Ahmed’s successor and eldest son Mohammed Shah built a tomb for him at Sarkhej. Designed by Persian architects the complex blends Islamic styles with local Hindu and Jain features, creating possibly the first Indo-Saracenic building, a style later developed by the Mughals and culminating in the Taj Mahal

The mausoleum of Ganj Bash, Sarkhej Roza
Shoes may not be warn, the white painted path reflects the heat, otherwise the stones in direct sunshine would be too hot to walk on

Vijay, a devout Hindu, bowed his head to the Sufi saint in a moment of silence while I just gawped.

The tomb of Ganj Baksh, Sarkhej Roza

But not everybody was allowed in, indeed half the human race are considered unworthy. Lynne was unimpressed.

Some of those who had to remain outside and the man who guards the entrance, Sarkhej Roza

Later in the century Sultan Mahmud Begada excavated a 7ha tank, though it no longer contains any water…

Mahmud Begada's tank, Sarkhej Roza

….and he, his sons and queen are buried across the courtyard...

The tomb of Mahmud Begada and his family, Sarkhej Roza

...in tombs of their own,…

The last resting place of Mahmud Begada and his sons, Sarkhej Roza

…the sexes separated in death by a cavern of gloomy elegance.

Inside the tomb of the Mahmud Begada family, Sarkhej Roza

Crossing the courtyard, we were stopped and asked for a photograph, and then another and another. Vijay obliged with their cameras, and we asked him to take some for us too. This often happens where foreigners are an exotic rarity, and as we were still in Ahmedabad, European faces would, we expected, be uncommon throughout Gujarat.

One of several families requiring a photograph, Sarkhej Roza

The mosque is in adjacent courtyard. It has a huge open space…

The courtyard to Sarkhej Roza mosque

….with a pillared entrance to a closed prayer hall, but there was little else to see.

Outside the prayer hall, Sarkhej Roza mosque

After the tank was built Sarkhej became a favourite retreat of the royal family. Two palaces were built on the far side of the tank, though they are little more than ruins.

The palaces opposite Sarkhej Roza are mainly ruined, but some parts are still impressive

The view back to Mahmud Begada’s mausoleum has a backdrop of tower blocks, the thirsty urban scene explaining where the water for the tank has gone.

The thirsty tower blocks of Ahemedabad and the empty tank of Sarkhej Roza

Ahmedabad’s Old Centre

We drove back into town…

Driving back to central Ahmedabad

…dropped the car at the hotel and walked into the old centre of Ahmedabad, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Bhadra fort and parts of the old city wall can only be glimpsed through the clutter of the market.

Ahmedabad's old square

It was not an easy walk, tuk-tuks and motorcycles forced their way through the pedestrian throng, the cacophony of horns as they attempted to clear their paths just adding to the confusion.

Pushing on through the market, Ahmedabad

We passed a shop front restaurant, the benches outside filled with a selection of Ahmedabad’s more ragged citizens. We had hitherto encountered the usual quota of beggars, and Vijay had been adamant we should give nothing, but here he paused. ‘That is where you should give to the poor,’ he said (these may not have been his exact words), ‘they feed the needy as donations come in.

The poor waiting to be fed, Ahmedabad

I approached the man sitting at the entrance and fished out a 100 rupee note. He made a signal to the people on the benches and the first ten filed forward and sat in the gloom around the wall behind him. At this point I would have preferred to move on but Vijay told me to wait. The man scooped up a mixture of rice, lentils and vegetables (the vast majority of Gujaratis, Vijay included, are vegetarians) and offered the plate to me, insisting I touch the rim before it was passed to the first customer. I had to similarly bless the second before being allowed to go. So, ten people received a small but wholesome meal for 10 Rupees (£0.11p, €0.12, $0.13) each.

So how did it make me feel? I felt ashamed, ashamed that I had stood and watched people being fed with my loose change, ashamed that I had left others still sitting and waiting when I had given so little. I felt perplexed by the values of a world which had given me so much and them so little and confused that to some I have wealth beyond imagining, yet do not consider myself a rich man. India can be challenging - and it is good to be challenged.

Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad’s Friday Mosque

Leaving our shoes at the mosque entrance we entered a large colonnaded courtyard with a central wudu.

Courtyard, Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad

Our walk towards the prayer hall was accompanied by the dusk call to prayer, but we would have time for a look round before those with a more serious purpose arrived.

Prayer hall, Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad

The mosque was built in 1424 by Sultan Ahmed Shah I, the founder of the city so it is slightly earlier than Sarkhej Roza. The elaborate entrance to the prayer hall features a hanging ornamental arch between the slender inner pillars, a decoration we had not seen before but is, we would discover, very common in Gujurati religious architecture, whether Muslim, Jain or Hindu.

Prayer hall entrance, Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad

Lynne was not allowed inside, which neither surprised nor pleased her, though there was actually little to see and photography was unwelcome. Vijay and I were asked to leave after only a short look. ‘These people are volunteers,’ he said, ‘and sometimes become a little over-enthusiastic.’ I found Vijay’s ability to always see the best in people refreshing.

Worshippers were now arriving in numbers. Washing before prayers is important, so in addition to the central wudu there was a line of taps along part of the colonnade. The sight of thirty men engaged in communal foot-washing was unusual to our western eyes – and slightly amusing.

Communal foot-washing, Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad

Wandering through the Streets of Ahmedabad’s Old City

In the run-down streets outside….

Outside the Jama Masjid, Ahmedabad

….we found the mausoleum of Ahmed Shah and the son and grandson who succeeded him. The tombs are well looked after, but the location makes you wonder if anyone really cares. And if that is true for the Sultans it is doubly true for their wives entombed nearby.

The tomb of Sultan Ahmed Shah and his successors, Ahmedabad

We continued our walk through the old city, pausing at the sugar cane crusher. A handful of canes are passed through the crusher three or four times, a couple of lemons being folded in on the second pass...

Our sugar cane look well crushed, Ahmedabad

...to make a refreshing drink, the sweetness balanced by the lemon’s acidity.

Lynne and Vijay enjoy a refeshing crushed sugar cane drink

There are some fine old havelis in the narrow streets…

Haveli, Ahmedabad old city

….some of which look to have survived unchanged from medieval times.

Haveli in streets of medieval narrowness, Ahmedabad

Around 7.30 the market starts to transform into a food market and Vijay was keen that we should stay, but we were flagging and there was still a twenty-minute walk back to our hotel, so we decided to leave that for tomorrow.

We returned, shared a paneer curry in the Green House restaurant and retreated to our room to break out the Old Monk for a night-cap and then have some much needed sleep.

*Though Kolkata and Chennai both have bigger metropolitan areas - and some sources put Chennai 5th and Ahmedabad 6th


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Location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Saturday, 15 December 2018

Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain: The (N + 8)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

Staffordshire
This is the 9th of these walks I have written about – I started with the Nth though the exact size of N is still discussed. In recent years I have warned that I am running out of new things to say about a walk across Cannock Chase, but the time for warnings is over, this time the well has run dry.

Almost.

After a wobble last year with only three walkers on a January Chip Walk, it was good to be back in the proper pre-Christmas slot, and for there to be 6 participants: Francis, Lee and me (last year’s stalwarts), Sue and Mike (last year’s missing regulars) and Anne S on her first (hopefully of many) Chip Walks. It would have been 7 but for occasional welcome guest Anne W having to cry off at the last minute.

Mike and I arrived at Chase Road Corner to find Francis’ van parked with the flattest of flat tyres and Francis, Sue and Lee sitting inside, oblivious. We pointed out the problem and while they were taking stock of the situation Anne texted to say she would be ten minutes late. She suggested we set off and she would run and catch up. Her enthusiasm is a tonic, but nobody has threatened to run on a chip walk before; I don’t think it should be encouraged. We waited for her, of course, and she arrived as Lee and Francis finished changing the wheel.

Changing a tyre, Chase Road Corner car park
Those not involved in motor mechanics spent the time enjoying the Chase Road Corner car park’s arctic condition. It is an exposed spot and we set off into a stinging icy wind. I paused to adjust a boot lace and found I was quickly left behind, even the swiftest walkers in the group going just a little quicker to get the blood circulating….

Moving briskly from Chase road corner through a cold and biting wind
….and to be over the lip of the Sherbrook Valley as soon as possible. The descent into more sheltered territory came as a relief.

The descent starts, led by two Geographers and two of Santa's elves
Despite the slightly different starting point we soon picked up last year’s route, following Marquis’s Drive to and through the visitor centre and down to the railway and the A460. In the lowest part of the walk the weather felt positively balmy – at least in comparison.

One of them has disappeared! Marquis's Drive down to the railway line and the A460
A footbridge now spans the railway, but you still have to cross the A460 Rugeley-Cannock Road where the stream of fast cars is much more dangerous than the occasional train ever was.

There is no reason why the climb up to Stile Cop Road seems much easier on Marquis's Dive than the tedious drag up Miflins Valley - they start at almost the same height, are much the same distance and the two paths eventually join - but it always does. We paused for coffee where one of the mountain bike trails joins the main drag.

Coffee stop above the mountain bike trail
We continued to the end of Stile Cop Road and crossed it into Beaudesert Old Park and descended to the Horsepasture Pools. Francis took a nasty tumble on this section last year, but the path is now in much better condition with far less slippery mud, so the descent was made without mishap.

Down to Horsepasture Pools

At the pools we felt the first drops of the promised rain, though it was only spitting as we strolled from the pools to Upper Longdon and the Chetwynd Arms.

Thw Chetwynd Arms, Upper Longdon
The walk had been only 10Km, and we had been fairly swift, so we reached the pub shortly after 12. Lynne and Alison T, who were to join us for lunch were still some distance away. So there was a problem, how do you kill 30 minutes in a pub?

We ordered when they arrived, though as it was a Fish and Chip Walk the only real choice was garden or mushy peas.

Lunch at the Chetwynd Arms
l to r, Alison T, Lynne, Sue, Lee, Anne, Mike, Francis (and I'm hiding behind the camera)
It was Sue’s birthday, and her meal was delivered with a lighted candle. Happy Birthday Sue, and because it is your special day I shall not even mention that you ate vegetarian lasagne on a fish and chip walk.

Happy Birthday, Sue
I was waiting for her to blow out the candle, not realising she had already done it (Duh)
The longer we sat in the pub the steadier the rain became. Three years ago we gave up at lunchtime, but then we had been soaked in the morning and the afternoon looked worse. Also, Lee’s car was in the pub car park, which it wasn’t this year, so the temptation never arose.

The temperature was reasonably mild as we climbed into our wet weather gear and took a sunken path out of Upper Longdon which runs north of the Chase…

Down the sunken lane from Upper Longdon
… and into the field paths above Brereton (which is, I suppose, a suburb of Rugeley). Every walk on or around the Chase offers the opportunity of a view of Rugeley Power Station, but these paths have the very best. Softened by the mist, it has, as Anne observed, a certain brutal beauty.

Rugeley B was opened in September 1970 and burned 1.6m tonnes of coal a year to produce around 9 million MWh of power. There was a plan to convert it to burning biomass in 2012, but that came to nothing and the power station closed in summer 2016. The 120 job losses were regrettable, but Rugeley B is yet another coal fired power station no longer venting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that is good for the whole world. The ever-reliable Wikipedia tells me it is scheduled for demolition next summer, so this may be the last photograph of it to appear in this blog – but I will believe that when I don’t see it.
Rugeley Power Station
We returned to the woods at Chetwynd Coppice, found our way round the exotically named India Hills and returned to Stile Cop Road by the cemetery, 1.5 Km south of where we crossed it earlier. I had expected to turn up the hill and walk to the car park we usually use, but Lee had parked in the cemetery, so that was the end of the walk. The afternoon had been a brief 3 Km jaunt, but even at 3.15 the light was beginning to fade.

Lee drove us all back to Chase Road Corner, which was as bitingly cold as it had been in the morning. Exercise had been taken, tradition had been maintained, so now on with the festivities.

The Annual Fish and Chip Walks

The Nth: Cannock Chase in Snow and Ice (Dec 2010)
The (N + 1)th: Cannock Chase a Little Warmer (Dec 2011)
The (N + 2)th: Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain (Dec 2012)
The (N + 3)th: Cannock Chase in Winter Sunshine (Jan 2014)
The (N + 4)th: Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes (Dec 2014)
The (N + 5)th: Cannock Case, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal (Dec 2015)
The (N + 6)th: Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better (Dec 2016)
The (N + 7)th: Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East (Jan 2018)
The (N + 8)th: Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain (Dec 2018)
The (N + 9)th: Cannock Chase, Freda's Grave at Last (Dec 2019)
The (N + 10)th: Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid (Dec 2020)
The (N + 11)th: Cannock Chase, Tussocks(Dec 2021)
Dec 2020 - no walk
The (N + 12)th: Cannock Chase, Shifting Tectonic Plates (Dec 2023)

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Location: Cannock Chase

Friday, 23 November 2018

Oman (10): To the Edge of the Empty Quarter

A 'Lost' City in a Vast Expanse of Nothingness, Frankincense and the Salalah Museum

Khareef and the Mystery of the Empty Hotel


Oman
For the first time in our stay, a buffet was set out for breakfast. Ful, chilli, eggs and cheese went down well, but we still ate alone. We had learned yesterday that the hotel had seven guests occupying five rooms. Were they busier today or was this for show?

We met up with R and drove north across the arid land of the coastal strip towards the even more arid land of the higher ground behind.

North from Salalah

We asked him about the empty hotel. ‘It’s out of season,’ he said. Salalah’s temperature varies little throughout the year, the average daily high being 27º in the coolest months (January, February and August) and 32º in the warmest (May). We wondered when high season might be. ‘Khareef,’ R replied, literally ‘autumn’, ‘all hotels are full then’. The coastal fringe around Salalah is far enough south to just catch the edge of the south-west monsoon so July and August, among the hottest months elsewhere in Oman, are slightly cooler days of mist and drizzle locally called ‘autumn’. I see enough drizzle in my life and cannot imagine travelling to see more, particularly not hot, sweaty drizzle, but in khareef, visitors come from all over Oman, Saudi Arabia and the gulf to experience rain and enjoy the brief, but dramatic, transformation of the landscape. Proof, if it was needed, that holidays are about different experiences; if sand and sun (and possibly even sea) are your everyday habitat, what is attractive about a beach holiday?

The road north from Salalah during Khareef
Photo by Samadash65, borrowed from Wikipedia

Salalah to Thumrait

Salalah to Thumrait is an 80km drive on a good, if uncrowded road.

The Empty Qarter is a huge dune desert covering the southern third of Saudi Arabia, parts of the UAE, Oman and Yemen.
Its southern edge is some 150km north of Salalah

Camels present a problem but in daylight at least the warning signs are smaller, less obvious and far less frequent than the camels themselves.

Beware of camels on the road to Thumrait

Thumrait is a hot, dusty little town largely inhabited by the nomads who once wandered the desert but now find life easier in settlements around its fringe. The Royal Air Force of Oman has a base nearby but Thumrait mainly makes its living as a truck-stop, a staging point on the route from Yemen to Salalah, though trade with Oman’s war-torn neighbour is not what it was.

Thumrait, basically a truck-stop

Thumrait to Shisr (or Ubar)

A little north of Thumrait we turned onto Route 43 a smaller, relatively recently tarmacked road running 90km north-west to a village called Shisr, though Google maps marks it as Ubar.

The journey started through an expanse of nothing…

An expanse of nothing north of Thumrait

…but further on we encountered some extensive irrigated areas.

Irrigated area on the road to Shisr, the small building to the left covers a well.

Small conical heaps of dark stones started to appear beside the road every few hundred metres. They mark tracks into the desert many of them only a few hundred metres long and all ending at a small cuboid shaped building, like the one in the photograph above. They have an electricity supply and I believe they are wells.

There are two of the 'small conical heaps of dark stones' one on each side of the road

As we neared Shisr there were huge circles of cultivated land. Metal gantries more than 100m long rotate around a vertical axle carrying sprinkler heads to irrigate the whole circle. We had seen identical devices in the deserts of western Washington in the 1980s; Oman, like the USA, can afford to make the desert bloom.

Reaching Shisr

Shisr or Ubar (or Iram of the Pillars)

Shisr is a lonely hamlet deep in the desert. Tamarisk trees grow here without irrigation, and it was once the site of an important well, the last one going north for a very long way. Modern Shisr is a prosperous little place where experimental farms pump water from deep underground. Aerial views show some of the circular irrigated areas are almost 600m in diameter.

Tamarisk trees, Shisr

Shisr also has a roundabout (though very little traffic) a camp site and an archaeological site, with the greeting ‘Welcome to Ubar, the lost city of Bedouin legend’.

There is not a great deal to see apart from some suspiciously newly rebuilt walls…

Recently rebuilt walls at Shisr (or Ubar)

…and a propped up, part-collapsed limestone shelf from which a fort long ago fell into the well below, either because of seismic activity or because the water table dropped. R retreated to the shade to play with his phone, so we read the information boards from which we learned little.

The well and the remains of the fort, Shisr (or Ubar)

The tourist authorities would like us to believe these are the remains of the lost city of Ubar or Iram of the Pillars whose destruction merits a fleeting appearance in the Qur’an. It might be - and they apparently have Google maps convinced - but probably isn’t. It is a long story so it appears as an appendix at the end of the post.

Into the Empty Quarter

Shisr was Wilfrid Thesiger’s last stop before his epic crossing of the Empty Quarter in 1946. It was also the gateway to the Empty Quarter for our less epic visit to the great arid wilderness. At Shisr the tarmac ended and we took to the sand. At first accompanied by a power line…

Leaving Shisr

….but before long there was nothing but sand, as far as the eye can see. We were not yet in the Empty Quarter, though it looked pretty empty to me - apart from the lines of car tracks, all running in the same direction...

And this is not the Empty Quarter yet!

Half an hour from Shisr we drove through the remains of a desert camp. It was intended as a tourist attraction, like the Thousand Nights Camp in the Wahiba Sands, but now lies abandoned.

Abanadoned camp near the Empty Quarter

A little further on a water tanker, old, rusty and huge, lumbered crossed our path. ‘The Bedu used to sling water skins on to their camels,’ R said (or words to that effect), ‘but that’s how they move water now.’

The Empty Quarter has no ‘official’ boundary, but it is reasonable to say it starts with the dunes, which came into view only ten minutes beyond the deserted camp.


The dunes of the Empty Qarter come into sight

We had entered an area of scrub, dotted with surprisingly large shrubs. These are Sodom Apple (Calotropis Procera), which produces a green fruit about the size of an apple. It is largely filled with air and when ripe bursts ejecting seeds and a small quantity of fine fibres which in days gone by were twisted into matches for guns. The fleshy lobes contain a highly poisonous, sticky, soap-resistant latex. A plant to avoid.

Lynne as close to a Sodom Apple as a sensible person would wish to be

The dunes were heavily marked with tyre tracks, but the only two vehicles on them left as we arrived. R drove round the base of the first set of dunes but was reluctant to venture onto them. Once you leave the flat land at the base….

On the firm ground at the base of a dune, the Empty Quarter

…the sand is soft and it is easy for spinning wheels to dig themselves in. We discovered just how soft it was when we set off on foot up the nearest dune.

One step up, three quarters of a step down, climbing a dune in the Empty Quarter

Our car was equipped with a winch – as should any vehicle that ventures out here - but in the absence of other vehicles there is nothing to attach the winch to. We had to respect R’s decision; this is no place to be stuck on your own.

Climbing up through the soft sand was difficult, every upward step included a downward slide so after four paces your lower foot had arrived where your upper foot had started at pace one, a little like running up a down escalator. In the Gobi we had worn thermal boots as protection from the heat of the sand but here climbing in bare feet was comfortable enough.

I don't care about the top, I'm willing to settle for this little plateau

Finally, reaching a plateau, it was time for a panoramic photo.

Apart from our car, the Empty Quarter looks pretty empty

The Empty Quarter really is empty, but once you have seen that, you must either cross it – a challenging journey even today – or turn round and go home.

Back to Salalah

Black Camels

Somewhere near Shisr, we found some black camels among a small group of ‘normal’ camels milling aimlessly around. There is nothing special about black camels; as with sheep a recessive gene sometimes manifests itself in producing a black coat, but we had never seen one before.

Black camel, near Shisr

Lunch in Thumrait

Back at Thumrait we stopped at the Thumrait Palace – an Indian restaurant, not an actual palace – for a belated lunch. A minibus-full of German tourists contented themselves with the buffet while we ordered chicken biryani, salad, vegetable curry and chapatis.

Indian 'guest workers' made up the majority of the customers. Throughout Oman, Omani citizens make up only 55% of the population. 45% are expatriates (62% in the Muscat Governorate) and we had encountered a substantial number of Filipinos and Indians, though many other nationalities are represented.

A Frankincense Orchard

Nearing Salalah we dropped into a frankincense orchard (or is it ‘grove’) though the trees are far more widely spaced than in any type of orchard in less arid countries.

Frankincense 'orchard' on the way back to Salalah

Despite their resistance to the climate they still need irrigation.

Lynne and a frankincense tree, with hoses for irrigation

Frankincense is harvested by slashing the bark, causing resin to bleed out and harden in the sunshine. Trees start producing at 8 to 10 years and are tapped two or three times a year, the final tap producing the most aromatic frankincense. The seeds of heavily tapped trees are reluctant to germinate and current over production is leading to a decline in the ‘wild’ population.

Salalah Museum

The Salalah museum our itinerary had down for our first day in the south had now reopened after the holiday - better late than never.

A frankincense tree dominates the main courtyard, and much of one room is devoted to the frankincense industry.

Salalah museum

Another room covered fishing and sea-faring generally, with models and full sized mock ups of local boats, while a third showed finds from archaeological excavations, including from Sumharam. The information was well-organised and well-presented and the museum gave a fine overview of southern Oman – which would have been even better if we had seen it at the start!

Finds from Sumharam, Salalah museum

Going Home

Then R took us to the airport. Our original plan had been to stay another night in Salalah, and take a morning flight to Muscat to connect with the Manchester flight. By the time we had sorted the details of this trip the only flight early enough for our connection was the only one fully booked.

We spent longer than we would have liked in Salalah airport, including time sitting on the plane while engineers fixed a problem – never a welcome experience. The flight, once it took off was uneventful, but the delay meant we reached our Muscat hotel too late for dinner - never mind, we had enjoyed a good lunch.

Next morning we went home.

And Finally (as promised)…

The Story of Shisr (or Ubar, or Iram of the Pillars or Omanum Eporium)

According to some Islamic beliefs, King Shaddad of  ‘Ad (or Ubar or Iram) defied the warnings of the prophet Hud, so Allah smote the city, driving it into the sands, never to be seen again. The ruins allegedly lie somewhere beneath the sands of The Empty Quarter. The story "The City of Many-Columned Iram and Abdullah Son of Abi Kilabah" in One Thousand and One Nights introduced Iram/Ubar to the west.

In 1930 the British explorer Bertram Thomas, the first European to cross the Empty Quarter, heard tales of a lost city and learned of the location of a track somewhere in the region of Shisr which led to the legendary city of Ubar. He contacted T. E. Lawrence, always an enthusiast of the lost city theory, who suggested exploration by airship. Thomas was never able to return to Arabia.

For a long time Shisr was known merely as a ‘difficult well’, a place where to it took all day to water a herd of camels. Wilfred Thesiger visited in 1946 at the start of his first crossing of the Empty Quarter.

“We watered at Shisur (sic), where the ruins of a crude stone fort…mark the position of the famous well, the only permanent water in the central steppes….At the bottom of the large cave…was a trickle of water in a deep fissure…When we arrived…the water was buried under drifted sand and had to be dug out.” Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands, Penguin

Thesiger made no suggestion as to the age of the fort. I have read that he found some early Islamic pot shards there, but I can find no mention of this in Arabian Sands.

In 1948 a geological party from Petroleum Development (Oman and Dhofar) Ltd carried out a survey of south western Oman. They were unimpressed by Shisr noting “there are no houses, tents or people here: only the tumble-down ruin of this pre-Islamic fort.”

The 1948 survey did not have the benefit of satellite pictures, but amateur archaeologist Nicholas Clapp did and they brought him to Shisr in 1992. His excavation concluded that he had indeed found Ubar/Iram of the Pillars. Sir Ranulph Fiennes was a member of the expedition and in his book Atlantis of the Sands claimed they had discovered the site of Omanum Emporium known only from Ptolemy's 2nd century map of Arabia.

I have no expert knowledge, but in support of Clapp’s or Fiennes’ theory there is definitely something there and the Empty Quarter has been a desert of arid dunes for 7,000 years so no city worthy of the name could have existed for several hundred miles to the north.

On the other hand, the mention in the Qur’an is fleeting. Surah 89, The Dawn deals with the ‘law of opposites, light and darkness, rise and fall, as in nature, so in the lives of men and nations,’ and does so in terms which are opaque, at least to this uninitiated reader. Verses 6 to 13 (of 30) read

Have you not seen what your Lord did to the ‘Ad
Of Iram with lofty pillars erected as signs in the desert,
The like of whom were never created in the realm;
And with Thamud who carved rocks in the valley;
And the mighty Pharoah
Who terrorised the region,
And multiplied corruption.
So your Lord poured a scourge of punishment over them.

Juris Zarins of Missouri State University, who is a professional archaeologist said in a 1996 interview "There's a lot of confusion about that word [Ubar]. If you look at the classical texts and the Arab historical sources, Ubar refers to a region and a group of people, not to a specific town. …it was only the late medieval version of One Thousand and One Nights…that romanticised Ubar and turned it into a city, rather than a region or a people."

A fort, though, undoubtedly existed at Shisr. As Wilfred Thesiger tells, the tribes who lived around the fringes of the Empty Quarter were notorious for camel raiding and blood feuds. They largely met (and fought) at wells. Maybe at some time in the past an ambitious ruler built a fort to ensure peace at the waterhole.

When it comes to ‘lost cities’ my instinct is towards scepticism.

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Location: Thumrait, Oman
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